Christie Chronicles

Inquirer Blogger

Esquire magazine today published an interview with Christie in which he speaks of the town hall meeting in Florence Township when he got into an argument with a Navy SEAL about the Rutgers-Rowan merger -- and ultimately called that Navy SEAL an idiot.

In the interview, Christie said:

I let him speak, I was trying to answer, but he kept interrupting me. And he told me he was a law student. So I told him, If you conduct yourself in court like that, you're gonna get your rear end thrown in jail by a judge. Now, I should have stopped right there. But then I said, "Idiot." He was acting like an idiot, but if I had the chance, I would have just ended it at telling him not to interrupt...Every once in a while, you go a little too far.

He also tugged at the heart in the interview:

Last Saturday, I brought my first child to college. That night I was putting my twelve-year-old son to bed, and as I was tucking him in, he said to me, "Dad, do you miss Andrew?" And I said, "Sure." I said, "Do you?" And he said — this is a twelve-year-old — he said, "More than I have words to describe." Whew. So I tucked him into bed, and I said, "Well, listen, if you need to talk, you know you can talk to Dad." And he said, "Sure. You're my man." And I go to walk out of the room and close the door, and he said, "Dad, come here for a sec." So I came back in, and he said to me, "And Dad, if you need anything tonight, I'll be right here."

I'll be on Name-Calling Watch at 3 p.m. today, when Christie returns to South Jersey for a town hall meeting at the Mount Laurel in YMCA. Stay tuned.